Communications of the ACM
Python-Based Compiler Achieves Performance Speedups
The Codon compiler, from a team led by researchers from MIT CSAIL, allows developers to create new domain-specific languages … From ACM TechNewsAn edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
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System Improves Automated Monitoring of Security Cameras
MIT researchers have developed a system that can analyze several surveillance cameras more accurately and in less time than it would take a human operator.
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Engineering a Safer World
MIT professor Nancy Leveson recently hosted a workshop to educate more than 250 safety engineering professionals from around the world about System-Theoretic Accident...
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A Camera That Peers Around Corners
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a system that can produce recognizable three-dimensional images of objects located around corners...
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Tiny 3D Chips
Microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are small devices with huge potential. Typically made of components less than 100 microns in size—the diameter of a human...
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Microchips' Optical Future
To keep energy consumption under control, future chips may need to move data using light instead of electricity—and the technical expertise to build them may reside...
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New System Allows Robots to Continuously Map Their Environment
MIT researchers have developed a system that enables robots to create and continuously update a three-dimensional map of their environment using a low-cost camera...
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Robots in Reality
Consider the following scenario: A scout surveys a high-rise building that's been crippled by an earthquake, trapping workers inside. After looking for a point...
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Important Step Toward Computing with Light
There has been enormous progress in recent years toward the development of photonic chips—devices that use light beams instead of electrons to carry out their...
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Printing Off the Paper
Imagine being able to "print" an entire house. Or a four-course dinner. Or a complete mechanical device such as a cuckoo clock, fully assembled and ready to run...
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Increasing Fuel Efficiency With a Smartphone
Researchers at MIT and Princeton University have developed SignalGuru, a system that uses a network of smartphones mounted on a car dashboard to collect information...
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A New Planning Tool Helps Direct Traffic on Aircraft Carriers
On the deck of an aircraft carrier, where up to 60 aircraft are crammed into 4.5 acres (1.8 hectares), real estate is at a premium. While aircraft directors wave...
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Layer pon Layer
Graphene, a form of pure carbon arranged in a lattice just one atom thick, has interested countless researchers with its unique strength and its electrical and...
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Streamlined Rules For Robots
With the explosion of the Internet and the commoditization of autonomous robots (such as the Roomba) and small sensors (such as the ones in most cell phones),...
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Long Live the Qubit!
A quantum computer is a device—still largely theoretical—that could perform some types of calculations much more rapidly than classical computers. While a bit...
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Which Technologies Get Better Faster?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a mathematical model to predict which technologies are the most likely to rapidly advance and be...
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Toward Faster Transistors
In the 1980s and '90s, competition in the computer industry was all about "clock speed"—how many megahertz, and ultimately gigahertz, a chip could boast. But...
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Kaashoek Wins Acm's Prize For Young Researchers
Frans Kaashoek, a professor in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and associate director of the Computer Science and Artificial...
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The Quantum Singularity
MIT professor Scott Aaronson and grad student Alex Arkhipov will present a paper at ACM's 43rd Symposium on Theory of Computing that describes an experiment, which...
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Retooling Algorithms
Charles Leiserson and his team are experts at designing parallel algorithms—including one for a chess-playing program that outperformed IBM’s Deep Blue.
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